Mixed-reality teaching experience helps students develop skill

McAlister, Sara

English

eGrove (Univ. of Mississippi)

University of Mississippi eGrove University of Mississippi News 12-20-2018 Virtual Classrooms Deliver Real Advantage for UM Education Majors Sara McAlister Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/umnews Recommended Citation McAlister, Sara, "Virtual Classrooms Deliver Real Advantage for UM Education Majors" (2018). University of Mississippi News. 6704. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/umnews/6704 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Mississippi News by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact egrove@olemiss.edu. Search this website … SearchVirtual Classrooms Deliver Real Advantage for UMEducation MajorsMixed-reality teaching experience helps students develop skillsDECEMBER 20, 2018 BY SARA MCALISTERUM senior Bre Comley (left) and graduate student Gabby Vogt interact with student avatars through Mursion.Last school year, 800 students in the School of Education practiced with the cutting-edge technology systemand are required to use it at least twice as part of their coursework before graduating. Photo by MeganWolfe/Ole Miss Digital Imaging ServicesOXFORD, Miss. – Meet Ava and Dev. They are in middle school. Ava is quick-thinking and decisive andlikes to be challenged with new ideas and concepts. Dev is a rule-follower who is self-driven with highstandards.Ava and Dev are not your average students. In fact, they are not even real students at all. They areavatars in a virtual classroom at the University of Mississippi School of Education, where educationmajors are gaining valuable, hands-on teaching experience even before their student teaching.Mursion, originally called TeachLive, is a cutting-edge technology that delivers customized virtual realitytraining to provide professional challenges that exist in the job every day.Developed at the University of Central Florida, Mursion is being used at more than 85 campuses in theUnited States. Since 2012, Mursion has grown at UM. Last school year, 800 students in the School ofEducation practiced with the system and are required to use it at least twice as part of their courseworkbefore graduating.“Through Mursion, the mistakes students used to make in front of real students can now be made infront of avatars,” said Tom Brady, the school’s Mursion coordinator and a clinical associate professor.“This way, a student can watch back for feedback and see themselves teaching for the first time.“Students are able to see how they miss student avatars falling asleep or on their phone; until thisiteration, it may go unnoticed for two or three minutes.”Mursion is designed so that if a student does not do well, there are no consequences because theavatars just forget and the student can start again. If the teacher does that in the classroom, the kidsdon’t forget.Since all the qualities of the virtual classroom are controlled by a faculty member teaching the class,students who feel they did poorly can re-enter the virtual classroom and teach the lesson again withouthaving affected student learning. Depending on the lesson objectives, sessions typically last anywherefrom 10 to 20 minutes.The system works from two ends. From oneend, a teacher interacts with a screen showing aRead the story …Read the story …Follow us on socialCampus BriefsCivil Engineering Professor ReceivesMost-Cited Paper AwardOXFORD, Miss. – Peer recognition is arewarding experience for anyone, butUniversity of Mississippi researcher AmirMehrara Molan was elated when an articlehe co-authored recently received the MostCited Paper Award at the102nd Transportation Research Boardmeeting in the nation’s capital. TheInternational Journal of TransportationScience and Technology presented the civilengineeringMore Posts from this CategoryThank You To OurDonorsYoung Alumna Gives Back to Schoolof AccountancyOXFORD, Miss. – Stephanie JenningsTeague, of Chicago, sees her commitmentof $100,000 to the Patterson School ofAccountancy‘s new building at theUniversity of Mississippi as a means ofsaying “thank you.” “It is a way to show asmall token of my appreciation to OleMiss, the faculty and staff, and theaccountingMore Posts from this CategoryOle Miss In the NewsReuters: Keep an Eye on the MoneySupplyU.S. inflation roller coaster prompts freshlook at long-ignored money supply ByMichael S. Derby NEW YORK – Theamount of money sloshing around the U.S.economy shrank last year for the first timeon record, a development that someeconomists believe bolsters the case forU.S. inflation pressures continuing toNews Releases UM COVID-19 Video Gallery University Communications Ole Miss Homepage Ole Miss News BlogFacebookTwitterLin edInEmailCopyLinkSMSPrintFriendlySharFacebookTwitterInstagramLinkedInYouTubeChannelUM elementary education major Scarlett McCombsinteracts with student avatars via Mursion. Photo byMegan Wolfe/Ole Miss Digital Imaging ServicesUM graduate student Scarlett McCombs interacts withstudent avatars via Mursion. Photo by Megan Wolfe/OleMiss Digital Imaging Servicesclassroom with multiple avatar personalities. Onthe other end, a trained actor candidly speaksthrough a voice modulator and mimics certainmovements through handheld controllers, basing reactions on predetermined personality traits of theMursion students.“The actors work very hard on changing their pitch just a little bit, and through the modulator, a 20-year-old woman can sound like a 13-year-old boy,” Brady said.As of now, two actors provide all the voices. Each session is organic and personal; they are notscripted, but personality descriptions of each avatar are provided for a foundational, yet unique,experience.Abby Wilson, a senior theatre major from Oxford, learned about Mursion through David Rock, UMeducation dean, who saw her perform in several high school productions.Once the Mursion acting job opened up, he reached out to see if Wilson would be interested. She usesher theater background to help her act out as a middle schooler behind the screen. But there is a lotmore to the job than just acting, Wilson said.“The job is way more technical than anything else,” she said. “Before this, I had never even picked up anXbox controller.”Much like activating a Kinect or Xbox, the user walks in front of a Kinect cable until the system confirmshe or she is identified. The avatars have many controls to react back to the teacher, much like those onan Xbox or Wii controller. Through a wireless connection, the teacher can be heard and seen as he orshe interacts with the virtual students on the screen.Scarlett McCombs, a master’s student in elementary education from Oxford, is another Mursionstudent actor. While Wilson’s experience covers acting, McCombs’ covers the classroom.“Many candidates do not have much experience with public speaking or working with children, and theMursion experience scaffolds them toward success in both of these areas through providing the mostauthentic virtual experience we can,” McCombs said.Together, their qualifications and studies make the perfect fit for a realistic and credible studentclassroom experience.By having real humans behind the virtual students, the sessions mimic the everyday parts of being ateacher very well. Specifically, student behaviors are designed to challenge the teachers, occasionallyeven lashing out or acting inappropriately.A new dynamic soon will be introduced to theclassroom, when UM faculty will add a studentwho struggles with dyslexia and a friend whomocks them in class.“If you see these sorts of things for the first timein a real classroom, you are more likely to crashand burn and let down some real kids, butinstead, they are seeing it here first,” Bradysaid.The avatars act on three levels. The first levelrequires student avatars to act relativelyobedient; if they “goof-off” and are disciplined bythe teacher, they will immediately listen and getback on task.The second level generates pushback, and avatars may speak inappropriately to the teacher. They mayfall asleep, play on their phones or “air-drum” on their desks when they are not interested in what theteacher has to say.The hardest level generates the kids to not let the teacher get anything done; it is not used in eithersection for the Ole Miss classes.Larry Christman, aka “Mr. C,” is a retired Oxford Elementary School principal and the Mursion labfacilitator. Christman is usually in the room with the students as a coach and evaluator.Christman began facilitating Mursion about seven years ago and has dealt with many nervous studentsover the years.“Most of my students have never taught a lesson or even stood before a group of peers and made anykind of public speaking,” he said. “I tell them it’s normal to feel some anxiety. That, hopefully, it will helpthem when they go to student teach.”Read the story …abate. The Federal Reserve’sMore Posts from this CategoryUM graduate student Gabby Vogt interacts with studentavatars via Mursion. Photo by Megan Wolfe/Ole MissDigital Imaging ServicesThere is no such thing as perfect performance in a Mursion session. Christman said his role is to helpstudents learn to be adaptable in the sometimes unpredictable profession of teaching.“Several years ago, I had a young lady who got up to teach her lesson and started crying,” Christmansaid. “She just froze up! My graduate assistant and I took her out in the hallway. We consoled her.“I told her to go back in the room and complete her lesson. She then did a wonderful job!”Mursion is required for all students, but it is not graded. It is used for feedback. This helps create amore realistic and calm environment for students to develop into teachers.“I learned a lot from the two TeachLive sessions that I completed,” said Lizzy Sloan, a seniorelementary education major from New Canaan, Connecticut. “They were both very meaningfulexperiences. I learned that it is normal to feel nervous before teaching students, especially for the firsttime, and to work through those feelings.“TeachLive helped me feel more confident with regards to my teaching abilities because I was able toreceive immediate feedback from Mr. C.”The university is helping Mursion grow across state lines, too, specifically to Alabama. Jan Miller, deanof the College of Education at the University of West Alabama, was thrilled to incorporate Mursion intothe curriculum after hearing from Ole Miss users.“Integrating Mursion into our educator preparation program helps to provide opportunities to startteaching on day one with more proficiency in classroom management and more confidence in thepedagogy of teaching,” Miller said.Using Mursion early in the education program ensures candidates will be better prepared for futureprofessional experiences, she said. With the help of UWA, UM is continuing to push Mursion expansionefforts across the country.Mursion also has room to grow at UM. Roomsare available for off-site locations such asSouthaven and Tupelo, using the actors inOxford.“We can do more … there is room to expand tooffering sessions all week long,” Brady said.Last year, UM faculty added a counselingsession with virtual parents. This “parent-teachermeeting” will act as a new dynamic for thestudents, because teaching not only involveschildren, but also their parents. This will allowstudents to learn to deal with many differentkinds of parent personalities.“Students are trained on communication strategies they might use for 11 difficult parent types theymight encounter in the TeachLive simulation,” said Sara Platt, UM clinical assistant professor of specialeducation. “These parents might be helicopter parents, disengaged parents, intimidating or threateningparents, or parents who are not concerned with school at all.”Platt and Debbie Chessin, retired associate professor of education, worked on this course for to give OleMiss students opportunities to apply data evaluation and communication skills.“This is the time for (students) to make the mistakes and receive guidance, so they should have nofear,” Platt said.A 2018 evaluation from the School of Education found that almost 90 percent of Ole Miss educationstudents believe the Mursion simulation feels like a real classroom and that they are more confident toteach real students after their experience. Additionally, more than 90 percent of students say theywould recommend the Mursion experience to peers who want to be teachers.“I tell the students that nothing will take the place of flesh-and-blood students, but Mursion is a closesecond,” Christman said.FILED UNDER: FEATURED NEWS, NEWS RELEASES, SCHOOL OF EDUCATIONRetu rn  to  to p  o f  p a ge Copyright © 2023 · Th e Un iversity  o f  M ississ ip p i

Virtual Classrooms Deliver Real Advantage for UM Education Majors

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Virtual Classrooms Deliver Real Advantage for UM Education Majors

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